John Miller is back again with anoth­er beau­ti­ful pho­to to share, and again cap­tured at Dream Lake (Lakedale). This time it’s a Buf­fle­head on the wing. Thanks for shar­ing John!

Local pho­tog­ra­ph­er John Miller shares this image he cap­tured Sat­ur­day of a swan on Dream Lake (Lakedale). Thanks for shar­ing John!

Freez­er Burned is an ongo­ing series on the San Juan Update, writ­ten by Steve Ulvi… (Authors note: this fic­tion­al tale of Alas­ka bush life adven­ture, grief and redemp­tion, cir­ca the 1980s, will be con­tin­ued found­ed upon two pre­vi­ous sto­ries.  See Freez­er Burned: “No Mat­ter What” and “The Con­fines of Heav­en” for char­ac­ter back­ground.) The Con­fines of  Con­tin­ue Reading

This arti­cle was Sub­mit­ted by Tran­si­tions San Juan Island Waste Man­age­ment Group… What keeps on giv­ing each year? Cre­at­ing tra­di­tions that help nature: A pot­ted fir tree brought inside to dec­o­rate, used year­ly; grow­ing side by side with us all. A can­dle lit every Xmas eve. A cac­tus passed down through gen­er­a­tions, nour­ished and watered through­out the year  Con­tin­ue Reading

The Con­ser­va­tion Land Bank and the Preser­va­tion Trust recent­ly com­plet­ed a for­est assess­ment at Turtle­back and Turtle­head Pre­serves. The result­ing report (click here to view report) out­lines a vari­ety of for­est man­age­ment actions aimed at increas­ing for­est health, habi­tat val­ue and cli­mate change resilien­cy. Staff are incor­po­rat­ing the rec­om­mend­ed actions into the forth­com­ing update to  Con­tin­ue Reading

This arti­cle writ­ten by Dominic Siv­i­t­il­li… The lab was buzzing with excite­ment when I arrived. A few weeks into the sum­mer term, the water tables of Lab 3 were teem­ing with inver­te­brate life. All vari­eties of mor­phol­o­gy and behav­ior were on dis­play for our class to study. But some­thing was dif­fer­ent today: the lab had  Con­tin­ue Reading

This morn­ing we find a let­ter to you in the San Juan Update Mail­bag from Steve Ulvi… In the late 1960s, my out­door adven­tures grew grit­ti­er; in wilder land­scapes, great­ly expand­ing on child­hood camp­ing trips.  My dom­i­nant inter­ests became nature-cen­tered, access under one’s own pow­er.  I felt the thrum of the non-human com­mu­ni­ty of life and  Con­tin­ue Reading

Trail Times is a con­tin­u­ing series of arti­cles intro­duc­ing the Old Mil­i­tary Road Trail (OMRT), a pro­posed 18–21 mile cross-island non-motor­ized mul­ti-use trail link­ing Eng­lish Camp and Amer­i­can Camp and hon­or­ing the orig­i­nal Old Mil­i­tary Road. The King Sis­ters Pre­serve is an often over­looked lit­tle gem in our San Juan Island Trail Sys­tem. Strate­gi­cal­ly locat­ed in  Con­tin­ue Reading

(Fri­day Har­bor, WA) – Novem­ber 2, 2021 – Join author Thor Han­son for two upcom­ing events host­ed by the San Juan Island Library. Han­son will regale read­ers with a dis­cus­sion of his new­ly released book, Hur­ri­cane Lizards and Plas­tic Squid: The Fraught and Fas­ci­nat­ing Biol­o­gy of Cli­mate Change via Zoom on Wednes­day, Novem­ber 3, at  Con­tin­ue Reading

At 7:00 pm, Sat­ur­day, Octo­ber 23, 2021, join Shona Aitken, Edu­ca­tion Coor­di­na­tor at Wolf Hol­low Wildlife Reha­bil­i­ta­tion Cen­ter, to explore the fas­ci­nat­ing world of island owls, and learn about the many dif­fer­ent owls that live here on the San Juan Islands. We hope you can all attend this enlight­en­ing talk. To reg­is­ter email: giverson@sjlib.org You will receive  Con­tin­ue Reading

Peo­ple who want to make a liv­ing work­ing with trees or forests are invit­ed to a free, hands-on, out­door course offered by the Eco­nom­ic Devel­op­ment Coun­cil of San Juan Coun­ty (EDC).  The course will be taught by Car­son Sprenger, pro­pri­etor of Rain Shad­ow Con­sult­ing at their Orcas Island facil­i­ties, Sat­ur­days Oct. 30th – Nov. 20th,  Con­tin­ue Reading

The Madrona Insti­tute has award­ed $22,500 in grants to local non­prof­it orga­ni­za­tions in its first year of grant mak­ing based on rev­enues received from sales of the San Juan Islands Spe­cial License Plate. This year’s grantees include: San Juan Islands Con­ser­va­tion Dis­trict for their San Juan Islands Youth Con­ser­va­tion Corps ($6,000), Friends of the San  Con­tin­ue Reading

The San Juan Coun­ty Land Bank Com­mis­sion will hold its month­ly meet­ing on Sep­tem­ber 17, from 8:30am-11:15am via Zoom. The pub­lic is invit­ed to attend. Click HERE to down­load the agen­da (includes ZOOM link) and meet­ing mate­ri­als. To learn more about your Con­ser­va­tion Land Bank, vis­it sjclandbank.org. If you’re inter­est­ed in vol­un­teer­ing and/or join­ing our  Con­tin­ue Reading

SPOKANE, Wash. – The Bureau of Land Man­age­ment (BLM), today, announced it will hold a meet­ing of the San Juan Islands Nation­al Mon­u­ment Advi­so­ry Com­mit­tee (MAC). The pub­lic is wel­come to attend the meet­ing which will occur on Tues­day, Sept. 14, via Zoom from 9:00 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. Planned agen­da items at the meet­ing  Con­tin­ue Reading

The recent­ly formed Camas Club launch­es a web­site https://camas.club cre­at­ed for and by islanders to con­nect with oth­er back­yard habi­tat enthu­si­asts. It is a place where native habi­tat afi­ciona­dos can ask ques­tions, share resources, orga­nize seed swaps, and more. By exchang­ing infor­ma­tion about aspects such as restora­tion tech­niques, lessons learned, trust­ed sources of native plant mate­r­i­al,  Con­tin­ue Reading

The fol­low­ing arti­cle is shared with you by R. Brent Lyles, Exec­u­tive Direc­tor, Friends of the San Juans It’s time to spring into action! On the morn­ing of Tues­day, Sep­tem­ber 14th, the Coun­ty Coun­cil will hold a hear­ing on the 2021 dock­et. This year’s dock­et includes pro­pos­als for new tree-pro­tec­­tion stan­dards, stormwa­ter-man­age­­ment stan­dards, and doing an  Con­tin­ue Reading